Pipe fittings, particularly those made of copper or brass, have an internal cylindrical surface into which a copper pipe is placed and joined by means of solder. It is important to clean and abrade the internal cylindrical surface of the pipe fitting, otherwise a good solder joint is not formed. The copper pipe or tube can be cleaned by means of emery cloth or the like, however it is harder to clean the internal surface of the pipe fitting, particularly in the case of a small diameter fitting. Various tools have been provided for cleaning and abrading the cylindrical surface of pipe fittings, examples include U.S. Pat. No. 2,469,586 to Wallace and U.S. Pat. No. 3,168,799 to Johnson, both of which provide hand tools having a cylindrical or frusto conical end which have abrasive surfaces and are used for cleaning the internal cylindrical surfaces of a pipe fitting or tube fitting. Whereas these devices are satisfactory it is found that the conical shaped tool is difficult to clean or abrade the very end of the internal cylindrical surface. The tool, if not handled carefully, can provide a tapered internal cylindrical surface resulting in more solder being required or the tube not being accurately aligned in the fitting. In the case of the tool having a cylindrical end, it is found that the abrasive particles together with brass or copper particles tend to fill up spaces in the abrasive surface thus causing more effort for a user to clean and abrade the surface. It also requires more continual changing of the abrasive material, be it in the form of emery cloth or the like.
It is known to provide an abrasive sheet band on the exterior of an expander member such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,801,503 to Pass. Thus by expanding the abrasive cylindrical surface one is able to adjust the diameter of the band to the internal cylindrical surface to be cleaned. However if there is no space for the abrasive particles to be removed they collect on the abrasive surface which reduces the cleaning ability of the tool.